Queen of the Depths (33 page)

“This is outrageous!” Arina exploded. “How can you bargain with us when the survival of everyone and everything is at stake? Seros is your home, too!”

“So it is,” said Tu’ala’keth, “and I would grieve to see its people slaughtered and its cities laid to waste. But I have pledged my loyalty to one power, one principle, beside which nothing else matters. I serve Umberlee, and the rest of you who owe her reverence must acknowledge her as well. Or perish beneath the fangs and claws of dragons.”

“I know,” said Vualdia, tentacles squirming, “some of us are squeamish about torture. But with our survival at issue, perhaps they could put their qualms aside and agree to force this creature to help us.”

“If I ask,” said Tu’ala’keth, “Umberlee will surely take my soul into her keeping and leave you a lifeless husk to question.”

“If I tortured you,” said Morgan, “it would be to punish you for impudence, not to extract the secret of Myth Nantar’s deliverance. Because you don’t have it!” He raked his gaze over his fellow councilors. “Don’t you see? It’s a trick, a game she can’t lose. She’ll give us some meaningless blather, and if we wind up defeating the dragons, she’ll take the credit. If we lose, and anyone survives to confront her, she’ll claim it’s because we didn’t pray hard enough.”

“If you lose,” said Tu’ala’keth, “it will be because

Umberlee offered you salvation, and you spurned it.”

“If a priest of Deep Sashelas, or any proper, civilized god”—Anton had a hunch that what Morgan actually meant was any patron god of the sea-elves—”made that claim, I might take it seriously. But Umberlee is just a spook for human sailors to dread, because she sinks their boats and drowns them. But what influence can she exert over those of us who dwell in the sea?”

“She is the sea,” said Tu’ala’keth. “You live your life in her embrace, and at every moment, only by her sufferance. But we need not argue about her majesty. If you accept my help, its worth will prove my contention. If you refuse, perhaps you will achieve greater insight in the afterlife.”

“All right,” said Jorunhast, frowning, wisps of his hair and beard wafting in the gentle current drifting through the room. Once the Royal Wizard of Cormyr, now, in his exile, a Dukar, he was human, the only such expatriate on the council. “Let me make sure I understand. You’ll hand over whatever weapons you collected, advise us how to use them, and we’ll decide whether to employ the strategy you recommend. If we do and emerge victorious, it’s then and only then that we all need to abase ourselves at Umberlee’s altar. Is that the bargain?”

“Yes,” said Tu’ala’keth, “but I will reveal nothing until I have the oath of every member of this council.”

“You won’t get them,” Morgan said.

Pharom frowned at him. “That’s not for you to say, cousin. Not by yourself. Not before we deliberate.” He turned to Tu’ala’keth. “Would you and your companion please withdraw so we can talk among ourselves?”

Tu’ala’keth inclined her head. “As you wish.”

The merman functionary conducted them into a waiting area, where dolphins, carved in bas-relief, swam on creamy marble walls. Anton managed to wait

until the servant left them in privacy, but then could contain himself no longer.

“What in the name of Baator are you doing?” he demanded.

“You heard the discussion.”

“Yes, but you didn’t warn me you were planning this… extortion. The way you explained it, you’d help your people, and afterward, they’d return to Umberlee out of gratitude.”

“Originally,” she said, “that was my intent. But I meditated on the journey back from Tan, and the goddess whispered that my simple scheme would not achieve its goal. The common run of folk are blind and heedless. You are a case in point. You are Umberlee’s knight and cannot even perceive it. In the aftermath of victory, Seros would rejoice. People might even think me a hero. But if I proclaimed the credit belonged to Umberlee, would the masses heed me? Would they flock back to her temples? I suspect not, and so I must compel them.”

“Doesn’t it matter to you that they won’t be praying out of honest devotion?”

“Aboard Teldar’s sailboat, you yourself observed that most folk pay homage to Umberlee only because they feel they must. They never have and never will comprehend her magnificence, and that is all right. She is well content with their dread.”

“So really, you’re just trying to put things back the way they used to be. All right. I see that.” He lowered his voice. “But I need to know: Are you bluffing? If the council refuses your demands, do you mean to help them anyway?”

“No.”

“Damn you!”

“You have sometimes thought me mad, and now you suspect it again. Or at least believe me devoid of feeling. But I am not. I can rejoice to behold Umberlee’s

face in the burst of blood when predator seizes prey and still not desire to see my entire race slaughtered. If the council denies me, I will withhold the weapons we have found. But otherwise, I will place myself at the disposal of the new army and fight and die with the rest of the soldiers.”

He threw up his hands, a gesture that, thanks to the city’s pervasive enchantments, he could perform as quickly as if flinging his arms through thin air. “Don’t you see how perverse that is?”

“You cannot judge the will of Umberlee by mortal standards.”

“They’re the only standards I have. I don’t hear the Bitch Queen telling me what to do. I’ve explained that time and again. I’ll tell you what I can perceive. Everything in Myth Nantar is strange to me. I see a creature, and I’m not even sure if it’s a person or just a fish. I notice workers carrying tools and have no idea what they’re for. But I do recognize that this is a splendid city peopled, more or less, with honest folk. Folk as worthy of protection as my own.”

“Yes,” she said, “they are.”

“Well, consider this: I can protect them. I know where you cached the poison and the rest of the loot. I listened to that whoreson Diero explain how to use it all. Why shouldn’t
go back into the council chamber and give the representatives what they want?”p>

“Do as your spirit prompts you. I will not stop you. It is no longer fitting for one of us to compel or constrain the other. We have come too far and achieved too much together.”

“Look, if you know I’d do it anyway, doesn’t it make sense for you to do it instead? Wouldn’t it be better for your standing among your people, and for your goddess’s as well?”

“Umberlee does not wish me to take that course, and in any case, I do not actually know what you will

do. Perhaps you do not know yet, either.”

With a pang of annoyance, he realized she was right.

He knew he ought to do precisely as he’d threatened. Common sense allowed no other option. Yet he’d come back to Seros to help Tu’ala’keth, not betray her a second time.

Maybe it wasn’t really treachery to thwart an addled mind in pursuit of disastrous folly, and she was right, often enough, she did seem crazy to him. He just couldn’t see what she saw or feel what she felt.

But sometimes he wondered what it would be like. How it felt to stalk fearlessly about the world, armored in faith and certainty, to steer one’s life by absolutes, not pragmatism and compromise.

It’s insane, he thought, but I could do it this one time. I could let go of my own notions and trust hers, if I’m willing to live with the consequences.

“Fine,” he growled, “I’ll keep my mouth shut. Just don’t tell me you knew all along how I was going to decide.”

“I did not. Umberlee has called us, but nonetheless, we are always free to swim with the current or struggle against it. Now be of good cheer. The councilors are wise after their fashion. They will see reason.”

They didn’t have to wait long to find out if she was right. Piscine tail flipping up and down, the merman servant arrived only minutes later to conduct them back to his masters.

For the most part, the councilors—those whose expressions Anton could read, anyway—scowled and glowered as if a physician had forced them to swallow vile-tasting medicine. He felt a sudden urge to grin, and made sure he didn’t.

“For the record,” Pharom said, “this council regards compelling the worship of any deity as a reprehensible practice. It could easily undermine the mutual

tolerance necessary for the six races to live in peace together.”

However, Anton thought.

“Yet at the same time,” the High Mage continued, “we naturally recognize the existence of all the gods, and understand that over the course of a lifetime, a sensible, pious person may offer to many of them, according to his circumstances. So, waveservant, if you, acting in the name of the Queen of the Depths, can help stave off the dragon flight, then we would deem it appropriate to proclaim a festival of celebration in her honor. As far as obliging the shalarin people to worship her on an ongoing basis, that’s an internal matter for As’arem. This council can’t command it.”

Tu’ala’keth turned to Ri’ola’con. “Then, High Lord,” she said, “as eadar, it falls to you to say yes or no on behalf of our folk.”

The wrinkled, frail-looking shalarin frowned. “You know very well, Seeker, that As’arem is five realms, not one, and that my authority has its limits.”

“Swear to do your utmost to meet Umberlee’s requirements, and that will suffice.”

In the end, the councilors all vowed in turn, each by his patron god, by one sacred principle or another or simply on his honor, though several offered their oaths with an ill grace. Morgan was the last and surliest of all.

“All right,” he said, “enough mummery. Enough stalling. Tell us your secret, and by all the powers we just invoked, it had better be worth the wait.”

“Very well.” Tu’ala’keth provided a terse account of the weapons they’d seized and what they proposed to do with them. Anton, who rather prided himself on making clear, concise reports to his superiors, appreciated the brevity.

When she finished, the other councilors looked to Morgan. “What do you think, cousin?” Pharom asked.

The warrior scowled and hesitated. Anton could all but see the feelings clashing inside him, resentment of Tu’ala’keth on one side, hope and the need to keep faith with his own martial pride by giving an honest appraisal on the other. “It’s… interesting,” he said at length.

Tu’ala’keth responded as if this equivocation settled everything. “I noticed you have started preparations to defend the city. That is good, for even if the army readied itself in time to engage the dragons elsewhere, this is the best place to make our stand. The damage will be significant, but we can turn the architecture and reefs to our advantage. I suggest evacuating all those unfit to fight.”

“We haven’t yet agreed to your plans,” Morgan said.

“That’s true,” Pharom said. “So should we? You’re as able and canny a soldier as anyone here, so speak plainly. Are you in favor, or against?”

“Yes,” sighed the other sea-elf. “This plan gives us more hope than anything we’ve thought of hitherto.” The truculence came back into his manner. “But only if her liquids and baubles perform as she claims.”

“If they do not,” said Tu’ala’keth, “I will be among the first to suffer for my stupidity. As it is my scheme, it is only proper that I play a central role in attempting it.”

Anton said. “I’ll be in the vanguard, too.” Nose to snout with more dragons, may the Red Knight stand beside me.

•Š•<§>Ś ŚŠŚ-<§>• ŚŠ•

Tu’ala’keth watched Anton swim experimentally back and forth and up and down. She understood the reason for it. Though they’d passed beyond the field of helpful magic enveloping Myth Nantar, the Arcane

Caste had, at her behest, supplied him with enchantments that should enable him to function just as well in the open sea. A bone half-mask allowed him both to breathe and to see in what he would otherwise regard as impenetrable gloom. A fire-coral ring warmed him, and eel-skin slippers and gloves enabled him to swim with the speed and agility of a shalarin.

Unfortunately, he hadn’t had much time to practice with the latter items before Morgan Ildacer led the company forth. He still felt uncertain of their capabilities. It was natural, but though she maintained her composure, as a waveservant should, his fidgeting was making her restless, too. “You will be fine,” she said.

Beneath the mask with its amber lens, carved scales, and gill slits, his mouth quirked into a smile. “Can I take that as a guarantee from Umberlee?”

“Umberlee does not deal in guarantees. It is simply that I have found you to be a quick study.”

He gazed right, left, up, straight ahead, then down at the dark, silt-covered slopes of Mount Halaath falling away beneath them. Many of their comrades were similarly peering about and making a point to check in every direction. In open water, an enemy could strike from anywhere.

“I don’t see the brutes,” Anton said. “It would be funny if they just decided to veer off and go somewhere else entirely. They could, you know. A dragon flight can do any crazy thing.”

“Not this one,” she said.

“Because Umberlee sent it?”

“I have spoken of pattern precipitating from the randomness of life. As it begins to articulate itself, it either breaks against some form of resistance or increases in implicit strength and complexity, until, if it thrives beyond a certain point, it inevitably fulfills itself. You and I have followed such a pattern. Or we created it. One perspective is as valid as the other.”

“So now the dragons have to come.”

She smiled. “I think that no matter how many times I explain, you will never truly permit yourself to understand. They do not have to. They can do as they like. But they will.”

He stiffened then said, in a softer voice, “Yes, I guess

SO.

She turned and looked upward as he was. At first, she couldn’t see forms, just a great burgeoning agitation in the water. That, however, was enough to send a pang of fear stabbing through her, because she comprehended just how many dragons it took to create that seething, onrushing cloudiness.

Many of her comrades were plainly frightened also, staring wide-eyed, shivering, and unconsciously cringing backward. She gripped the drowned man’s hand and murmured a prayer. A pulse of clarity and resolution throbbed within her, cleansing much of the anxiety from her mind, and streaming outward to enhance the courage and vigor of every ally within range.